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From the folks who brought you the weekend : an illustrated history of labor in the United States
A comprehensive look at the history of the United States through the prism of working people. In this fully updated new edition, the authors have added a wealth of fresh analysis of labor's role in American life, and three entirely new chapters on global labor developments, worker activism in immigrant communities, and the 2016 election and unions' relationships to Trump. -- Adapted from back cover.
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She Was One of Us
Although born to a life of privilege and married to the President of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt was a staunch and lifelong advocate for workers and, for more than twenty-five years, a proud member of the AFL-CIO's Newspaper Guild.She Was One of Ustells for the first time the story of her deep and lasting ties to the American labor movement. Brigid O'Farrell follows Roosevelt-one of the most admired and, in her time, controversial women in the world-from the tenements of New York City to the White House, from local union halls to the convention floor of the AFL-CIO, from coal mines to political rallies to the United Nations.
Roosevelt worked with activists around the world to develop a shared vision of labor rights as human rights, which are central to democracy. In her view, everyone had the right to a decent job, fair working conditions, a living wage, and a voice at work.She Was One of Usprovides a fresh and compelling account of her activities on behalf of workers, her guiding principles, her circle of friends-including Rose Schneiderman of the Women's Trade Union League and the garment unions and Walter Reuther, \"the most dangerous man in Detroit\"-and her adversaries, such as the influential journalist Westbrook Pegler, who attacked her as a dilettante and her labor allies as \"thugs and extortioners.\" As O'Farrell makes clear, Roosevelt was not afraid to take on opponents of workers' rights or to criticize labor leaders if they abused their power; she never wavered in her support for the rank and file.
Today, union membership has declined to levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the silencing of American workers has contributed to rising inequality. InShe Was One of Us, Eleanor Roosevelt's voice can once again be heard by those still working for social justice and human rights.
eBook
Working hard for the american dream
Working Hard for the American Dream examines the various economic, social, and political developments that shaped labor history in the United States from World War I until the present day. Presents an overview of labor history that also considers women workers, ethnic America, and post-World War II workers Incorporates the most recent scholarship in labor history Takes the story of labor up to the present day in a readable and accessible manner.
eBook
There is power in a union : the epic story of labor in America
This book is a history of American labor from the dawn of the industrial age to the present day. From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first real factories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth-century and their waning influence today, the contest between labor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped our national experience. Here the author's ambition is to show the vital accomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution. This is an epic character-driven narrative that locates this struggle for security and dignity in all its various settings on picket lines and in union halls, jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the halls of Congress, and the White House. Here the author demonstrates the urgency of the fight for fairness and economic democracy in a struggle that remains especially urgent today when ordinary Americans are so anxious and beset by economic woes.
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Where Are the Workers?
The labor movement in the United States is a bulwark of democracy
and a driving force for social and economic equality. Yet its
stories remain largely unknown to Americans. Robert Forrant and
Mary Anne Trasciatti edit a collection of essays focused on
nationwide efforts to propel the history of labor and working
people into mainstream narratives of US history. In Part One, the
contributors concentrate on ways to collect and interpret
worker-oriented history for public consumption. Part Two moves from
National Park sites to murals to examine the writing and visual
representation of labor history. Together, the essayists explore
how place-based labor history initiatives promote understanding of
past struggles, create awareness of present challenges, and support
efforts to build power, expand democracy, and achieve justice for
working people.
A wide-ranging blueprint for change, Where Are the
Workers? shows how working-class perspectives can expand our
historical memory and inform and inspire contemporary activism.
Contributors: Jim Beauchesne, Rebekah Bryer, Rebecca Bush, Conor
Casey, Rachel Donaldson, Kathleen Flynn, Elijah Gaddis, Susan
Grabski, Amanda Kay Gustin, Karen Lane, Rob Linné, Erik Loomis, Tom
MacMillan, Lou Martin, Scott McLaughlin, Kristin O'Brassill-Kulfan,
Karen Sieber, and Katrina Windon
eBook
Labor rising : the past and future of working people in America
\"When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker threatened the collective bargaining rights of the state's public-sector employees in early 2011, the huge protests that erupted in response put the labor movement back on the nation's front pages. It was a fleeting reminder of a not-so-distant past when the 'labor question'--and the power of organized labor--was part and parcel of a century-long struggle for justice and equality in America. Now, on the heels of the expansive 'Occupy Wall Street' movement, the lessons of history--in seemingly short supply--are a vital handhold for the thousands of activists and citizens everywhere who sense that something has gone terribly wrong. This pithy but accessible volume provides readers with an understanding of the history that is directly relevant to the economic and political crises working people face today, and points the way to a revitalized twenty-first-century labor movement. With original contributions from leading labor historians, social critics, and activists, 'Labor Rising' makes crucial connections between the past and present, and then looks forward, asking how we might imagine a different future for all Americans\"-- Provided by publisher.
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The Struggle for America's Promise
InThe Struggle for America's Promise,Claire Goldstene seeks to untangle one of the enduring ideals in American history, that of economic opportunity. She explores the varied discourses about its meaning during the upheavals and corporate consolidations of the Gilded Age. Some proponents of equal opportunity seek to promote upward financial mobility by permitting more people to participate in the economic sphere thereby rewarding merit over inherited wealth. Others use opportunity as a mechanism to maintain economic inequality. This tension, embedded with the idea of equal opportunity itself and continually reaffirmed by immigrant populations, animated social dissent among urban workers while simultaneously serving efforts by business elites to counter such dissent.
Goldstene uses a biographical approach to focus on key figures along a spectrum of political belief as they struggled to reconcile the inherent contradictions of equal opportunity. She considers the efforts of Booker T. Washington in a post-Civil War South to ground opportunity in landownership as an attempt to confront the intersection of race and class. She also explores the determination of the Knights of Labor to define opportunity in terms of controlling one's own labor. She looks at the attempts by Samuel Gompers through the American Federation of Labor as well as by business elites through the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Civic Federation to shift the focus of opportunity to leisure and consumption.The Struggle for America's Promisealso includes such radical figures as Edward Bellamy and Emma Goldman, who were more willing to step beyond the boundaries of the discourse about opportunity and question economic competition itself.
eBook
Labor rights are civil rights
In 1937, Mexican workers were among the strikers and supporters beaten, arrested, and murdered by Chicago policemen in the now infamous Republic Steel Mill Strike. Using this event as a springboard, Zaragosa Vargas embarks on the first full-scale history of the Mexican-American labor movement in twentieth-century America. Absorbing and meticulously researched,Labor Rights Are Civil Rightspaints a multifaceted portrait of the complexities and contours of the Mexican American struggle for equality from the 1930s to the postwar era.
Drawing on extensive archival research, Vargas focuses on the large Mexican American communities in Texas, Colorado, and California. As he explains, the Great Depression heightened the struggles of Spanish speaking blue-collar workers, and employers began to define citizenship to exclude Mexicans from political rights and erect barriers to resistance. Mexican Americans faced hostility and repatriation.
The mounting strife resulted in strikes by Mexican fruit and vegetable farmers. This collective action, combined with involvement in the Communist party, led Mexican workers to unionize. Vargas carefully illustrates how union mobilization in agriculture, tobacco, garment, and other industries became an important vehicle for achieving Mexican American labor and civil rights.
He details how interracial unionism proved successful in cross-border alliances, in fighting discriminatory hiring practices, in building local unions, in mobilizing against fascism and in fighting brutal racism. No longer willing to accept their inferior status, a rising Mexican American grassroots movement would utilize direct action to achieve equality.
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